IPA Sriracha Chicken Wings + How To Get The Crispiest Baked Wings Ever

At first blush, this seems like a cop-out. It’s beer and chicken wings, it’s such an obvious pairing you want to scratch your eyes out, scream “Milk and cookies, peanut butter and jelly, jalapeño and avocado! Give me something new!” But calm down, it’s more than that. It’s a revelation.

Really, it’s because I’m a nerd. Which is what drew me to craft beer, the geeky side of beer: the what, the why, and the how of beer. It’s the same with food. I don’t just want to know how to brine a chicken, I want to know why it works. I want to know what the difference between baking soda and baking powder, and I want to know how temperature affects meat. That’s why I read Cooks Illustrated. It’s not food porn, really there aren’t too many pictures, it’s food nerd porn. It’s the why, it’s not just the how.

Cooks Illustrated did a story on how to bake chicken wings in a way that the skin gets just as crispy as when you fry it. The fat is rendered, the skin is so crisp it makes a thump sound when you tap it with your nails. They nerd out on food in a way that makes me feel like I’m not alone. They tell you the kitchen fails, the reason they tried what they did, and what finally worked. For this: baking powder that draws out moisture, low temperate to render fat, and high temperate to make the skin golden brown. If you’re still reading this, you might just be as big of a nerd as I am. And next time we meet, I’ll buy you a beer and we’ll talk all kinds of food nerd talk.

Problem here. If you add up the cooking time these will be in the oven for over an hour. An entire chicken can be cooked in about an hour and 20 minutes. This really needs to be reviewed and reposted. It does however sound like a great dish.

This is a heavily tested reicipe put out by America’s Test Kitchen. The first cooking time is at a very low temp just to render the fat. I’ve made them dozens of times, it works amazing well. Just google “America’s Test Kitchen Baking Powder Wings” and read the hundreds of people who have made this with perfect results.

I love that you learned how to bake crispy chicken wings and just taught me all in that one paragraph! I have always wanted to know but have never researched….this is perfect! I will be making these as soon as wings go on sale at the store….CAN’T WAIT!

No. Cooks Illustrated is put out by America’s Test Kitchen, the recipes are the most heavily tested recipes there are, all tested by chefs. The first 30 minutes doesn’t do much to cook them, just renders fat. You can google the “crispy cooks illustrated chicken wings” recipe and see the countless amount of people that have made this recipe, all with outstanding results.

Bake for 30 minutes at low temp.
Bake for an additional 45 minutes at a higher temp.

I have heard of people making smoked wings and that people have said they were good.
My personal experience however….took part in a family wing off competition, with a total of ten wing varieties. My brother in law decided to make smoked wings….I immediately thought he was a God and I would be toast…thinking they would be amazing. But to tell you the truth….they came in last place. No one in our family really seemed to care for the smoked flavor at all. Seemed like a great idea, but be careful if say…just my 2 cents. Cheers.

It’s a light in color beer with a high amount of hops which gives it a really intense flavor. You can substitute any light in color beer and it will be fine (pale lager, pale ale, wheat beer, hefeweizen).

This sounds like a great addition to my planned Guinness wing recipe for this coming Super Bowl weekend. I’m a big fan of baking the sauce on the wings so the sauce gets nice and Carmelized(personal pref I guess) Can’t see why you couldn’t do the same recipe but start the oven with the sauce on eh??? Thanks…sounds great!!(I might add a hint of lime…but that is my inability to leave things well enough alone. Lol) cheers!

All I have to say is…. America’s Test Kitchen are the gods of the cooking world. These came out AMAZING! The only thing I would change is the sauce. While I followed all the rules for the first time at it, I must admit, the honey killed it for me. I like my wings spicy and this was just too sweet. However, the crunch, the crisp, the juice was all there. Plus, I had some delicious Celebration IPA to share with it. The hubs also approved and we will make this again, only spicier. Cheers!